Hughes reports, “The application was filed just months ago, in September of 2011, and comes as rumors of a full-fledged Apple television set continue to build. One report this week claimed that Apple design chief Jonathan Ive has a 50-inch prototype set located in his secure work studio at the company’s corporate headquarters.”

Design-wise, I’m picturing a very black exterior with a very black screen when off, completely flush with a narrow bezel. Then, with this advanced backlighting, when you’re watching a letterbox show (or the odd 4:3) the parts of the screen that are “off” will blend completely perfectly with the bezel.

That would kick ass, to say nothing of the interface that will be beautiful.

The other thing people are missing is the possibility of the iTV also containing iTunes and a 2TB hard drive, so that your entire movie and music collection could be stored on the iTV.

That automatically plugs your music into your home theater surround sound system, and may even permit music to be played on the patio speakers while a movie is watched inside, using your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch to interact with whatever feature you are using.

BTW, how about an iPod touch as a remote control, as in each iTV comes with one? Maybe only 4GB because it won’t need the storage space.

If Apple goes from 1024×768 pixels on the iPad 2 to 2048×1536 pixels on the iPad 3, then this same “dynamic backlight adaptation” technology would also be useful on the iPad to watch 1080p (1920×1200) HD movies. It could also be applied to other Apple displays. I don’t believe that this is slam dunk evidence of an upcoming TV product.